This week, my sourdough starter is 10 years old.
That's it above.
Yes, I know. The kind of face only a father could love.
Anyway, I made it when we lived in Spain – nothing but flour, water and the wild yeasts that are with us all the time – alongside Oscar, my enthusiastic 7 year old.
(Oscar is now learning to drive 😬)
In the intervening decade, that same sourdough starter has made many hundreds of loaves and nourished many souls.
So I was pretty proud of it.
Until I met Julian, that is.
Because when I just happened to accidentally-on-purpose drop the starter's vintage into conversation with this Kiwi baker extraordinaire, he smiled and said something suitably gracious and elegant (or ‘iligant’, as his muddled New Zealand vowels would have it).
Minutes later, however, it transpired that not only did he smuggle his sourdough starter - Escobar stylee - into the UK from NZ, but that it is more than 30 years old!
Hence the shrivelling.
But in the end, I can’t hold a grudge.
Julian bakes better than me, and he’s a lovely chap.
His breads sell out on the market nearly every week, and there’s a reason for that.
Just don't ask him for ‘six’.
Nick
PS - remember that delivery is free when you buy our Essentials bundle, which includes a loaf of Julian's organic country sourdough.
PPS - a customer told me yesterday that Steve & George's ginger and turmeric honey was 'a cold cure in a jar'. I like that. Better than Lemsip, anyhow.